“Eight feet,” I repeated, my voice barely carrying over the sound of a distant lawnmower.

“Eight feet on the nose,” Carl said.

He reached into his canvas bag and pulled out a bundle of wire stakes topped with square, orange plastic flags.

“I am going to drive these into your grass every ten feet along the true legal boundary so there is no confusion.”

He walked the line with a heavy hammer, pounding the metal stakes into the sod.

The bright orange plastic fluttered against the dark green of my lawn, creating a straight, artificial wall of warning signs just feet away from Tyler’s new fence.